The Scorpion and The Frog
by Kingashley97
Summary: "Trust me," he whispered fervently, extending his hand and lifting up his silvery mask to reveal a pointed chin and stunning grey eyes "But how do I know you won't kill me?" "Because if you die, I'll die too."
1. The Beginning of The End

It was war. War. Burnt and bloody bodies littered the slick ground, mud and rain and blood mixing together and making a treacherous, gruesome, slippery surface on which to battle. One wrong step and she was sure to go down, sure to join the heaps of deceased lying below, sure to meet her end at the wrong end of an Avada, her blood mixing with the mud in what could only be considered an ironic end. The Mudblood, muddying her blood in her final moments. But she did not trip, regardless of how treacherous her footing.

Spells flew through the air in all directions, a clusterfuck of malignant energy promising to consume any who let their attention slide. Hermione, her long, frizzy hair billowing around her, crackling with magical energy, shot spell after spell at the masked villains. Their pointed black hoods and shining silvery masks rid the enemies of any sort of defining feature, leaving only sheer anonymity and a quickly growing feeling of hopelessness. As Hermione took down Death Eater after Death Eater, another identical one would take their place.

It was a sea of chaos and Dark Marks, and she was at the center.

Tonks stood next to her, as her dueling buddy, shooting spells around and over her at enemies Hermione couldn't get, as Hermione protected Tonks in the same manner. Back at Grimmauld, everyone had paired up, and as Ron and Harry immediately clung together, Hermione had approached the clumsy Hufflepuff. An Auror, she would be a worthy teammate, and her individuality and spirit translated to unpredictable and passionate dueling on the battlefield. Tonks was impressive, ducking and weaving, shooting nonverbal stunners punctuated by verbal shield spells every couple seconds. She was unpredictable, shooting snakes and vines from the end of her wand, levitating and dropping opponents, fusing them with the ground or other Death Eaters, and fiercly protecting Hermione from any stray spell that happened to get past the shields.

Hermione got caught up in the overall feel of it all, the swirling chaos, watching pair after pair shoot multicolored streams of light across the battlefield. Somewhere, Ron and Harry were whirling around each other in a tornado of whirring energy, fighting off 8 or so Death Eaters at once.

Next to her, Nymphadora Tonks screamed "Protego!" Hermione's focus was drawn to the currently maroon-haired Metamorphmagus, but a second too late. The Shielding Charm had blocked a stunner sent from the left, but three other spells whizzed past the muggle-born's head to collide with Tonks's chest. Tonks let out an unearthly scream as she fell into the slick mud, joining what seemed like endless stacks of deceased witches and wizards.

"Tonks!" Hermione wailed, glancing down at the deceased Hufflepuff. Her facial features were morphing, changing into what they would have been genetically if not for the Metamorphmagi powers. Her hair became straight and black, much unlike the short choppy, tousled maroon locks she had sported that morning before the chaos of war took over. Her nose became, longer, thinner, and her lips became more thin. Hermione, for the first time, saw the resemblance to Sirius in her face.

But this was war. There was no time dwelling in loss.

Hermione blinked back tears, flinging stunning spells at every glimmer of a silver mask she saw. A loud cheer went up to her right, and she glanced over to see a ginger head go down. Their numbers were dwindling, and fast.

A firework shot up into the air, exploding into a phoenix and raining fiery red-orange feathers upon the battlefield. Remus's words from earlier rang through her mind.

'If you see the phoenix, Portkey out. Phoenix means retreat. I don't care if you've got You-Know-Who at the end of your wand, you see the phoenix and you retreat. No heroics. Got it?'

Shooting one last stunner at the closest Death Eater, hitting him square in the chest, she went to grab the Portkey from her pocket. A little key wrapped in cloth, it would transport her and only her to Grimmauld Place. Remus had spent hours encrypting each Portkey to a specific Order member, wrapping them gently in cloth and distributing them to their proper recipients. It was a genius idea.

The only issue Hermione could see was that the key wasn't in her pocket.

She dug through her jacket pocket with her right hand, shooting off spells with her left and praying to find it somewhere, anywhere. A scream of frustration ripped itself from her throat as she remembered setting it on the counter in the kitchen, not wanting to lose it before the battle even began. Fat load of good that did her! She was now stuck on this battlefield surrounded by the enemy, with her backup rapidly Portkeying away!

This wasn't good.

Hermione dropped to the ground, feeling for Tonks's pockets, looking for her Portkey. Maybe Lupin had changed the spells. Maybe she could use it to escape. Maybe, just maybe she had a chance.

The Death Eater she had recently stunned, about ten feet away, began to stir. He slowly sat up and his awful pointed hood fell back, revealing platinum blonde hair matted and marred with mud. Draco Malfoy shook his head, and picked up his wand from the ground beside him where it had been dropped.

Hermione began to panic, seeing him rise. The other Death Eaters had lost interest in her when she dropped to the ground, assuming, perhaps, that she was one of the deceased, but Malfoy wouldn't be so quick to pass her by, especially as he was already on the ground with her. Her hands roamed Tonks's still warm corpse as she anxiously sought the key she knew to reside in one of these goddamned pockets. Something soft brushed her knuckle and she gasped—could this be the key in its cloth?

She yanked the cloth out of her friend's left front pocket, opening the folds and touching her bare skin to the cool metal. Her entire body tensed as she anticipated the tight clench in her naval, the swooping sick feeling, but to no avail. No such sensations came.

"Damnit!" she screamed angrily, throwing the key to the ground. Malfoy's head snapped to the sound, focusing solely on her as she gave up on her escape.

He shook his head once more for good measure, and arose from the slick and muddy ground. The pouring rain soon washed the mud from his hair and face as he purposefully strode towards her.

Hermione scrambled for her wand, but she was too late. He was already upon her, piercing her soul with those vivid grey eyes, pointing his wand at her throat.

"Please," she whispered, "Make it quick."

A flash of light ran past her eyes and into her very being, and all was still.

3


	2. Expectations

" _One day, a scorpion looked around the mountain where he lived and decided that he needed a change."_

Draco Malfoy ran his hand through his platinum ice hair. Something was going to happen today, he could feel it in his bones. Well, his bones and his Dark Mark. It was festering today, itching and burning more than usual. The Dark Lord was on edge.

He sat down on the end of his luxurious four-poster bed. The phoenix-down duvet, constantly warm to the touch, did nothing to ease the chill running down his spine as her reached across to the end table where his small container of wand polish lay. Made from peacefully collected unicorn tears, it was of the highest quality. Only the best for a Malfoy.

Although lately, Malfoys hadn't been granted the same luxuries as he was used to. Nobody cared about your pristine lineage in the midst of battle, nobody gave a shit about your money when you bled out in the dirt. If there was one thing Draco had learned over the past year since taking the Mark, it was that all blood ran red, and all blood ran out. He had fought in several small skirmishes, and in every fight, muggle blood and mudblood blood and pureblood blood ran together into the ground. This war wasn't about purity, not really. This war was about sides. Purity was just a rallying point to gain followers.

Of course, in front of the Dark Lord, he believed wholeheartedly in blood purity. In front of the Dark Lord he believed whatever he must to allow his family to survive.

He ran his long, slender fingers through the varnish, getting a small dab of it and stroking it over his hawthorn wand. Nothing could be more relaxing, feeling the magical energy flow through his fingertips and into his wand, peacefully surrounded by the cleansing aura of magic.

A loud pop disturbed him from his efforts.

"Young Master Malfoy! Young Master Malfoy!" a small elf shouted excitedly, frantically tugging at his ears.

"What do you want, Tizzy?" Draco snapped.

"The Lord Malfoy is asking for yous, sir! He is be needing you right away!"

The small elf's eyeballs were huge, bulging out of his head as he anxiously squeaked at Draco. God, he hated the elves here. They were all so… Subservient. They had no personality except for docile. All they lived for was their job. They were scared into it, trained into it, by his father. It was a standard procedure, but an annoying one. The only elf with any sort of personality, the only elf worth having around, Potter had tricked free in his second year. What Draco wouldn't give for one of Dobby's unfunny jokes or slightly salty pies right now.

"You're dismissed, Tizzy. Let me be." He stated coldly, glaring at the elf until it disappeared from sight with another loud crack.

Draco sighed. Whatever his father wanted, it probably wasn't good. He wiped the extra varnish off his wand with a rag, shoved the wand in his pocket again, and began the trek across the Manor to his father's office.

It was a ten minute walk, across rooms and rooms of Malfoy history. Portraits of ancestors hung on the walls, mostly resigned to snoozing their lives away in the halls of the Manor. Some tried to state their wisdoms to him as he passed, oblivious to him ignoring the noisy paintings, and yet others told stories to the air around them, babbling on and on at their past conquests. Draco shuddered to think he would be among the old cracked paintings one day. There were rooms upon rooms of them, Malfoys stretching back generations, surely it wasn't important to have one more.

He made it to his father's office, disgruntled at the lengthy walk, and opened the mahogany door.

"You needed me, Father?" Draco questioned as he entered the light grey room, his father sitting on the opposite side of a table in a cushy armchair.

"If I didn't, would you be here?" Lucius replied with cold disinterest. His blonde eyebrows furrowed as Draco shut the door. "The Dark Lord would like to meet with you, this evening. You will be available for an upcoming mission, in which you will not fail. This is important, Draco. You must not fail this time."

Draco bristled under the disappointment evident in his father's words. "I won't fail this time. Regardless of what he tells me to do, I'll do it. You know this, Father."

"Don't get snippy." Lucius cocked an eyebrow and tightened his lips.

"I wasn't!"

Indignant, Draco went to leave the room. The cool grey walls were suffocating, almost as suffocating as his father's disappointed gaze.

"Son," barked Lucius as Draco headed out the door, "If you fail this time, this may be the last time I call you that."

"What?" Draco paused, his brain refusing to comprehend the thinly veiled threat.

"If you fail, again, I won't have a son."

Cool disappointment and haughtiness radiated off Lucius in waves as Draco slammed the door and stormed out. How dare he?! How dare his father threaten him! He was doing his damned best under the circumstances, fighting a war he didn't believe in simply to keep his family safe! How dare he call him in that stupid office and act like he was the most regal lord when around the Dark Lord he sniveled like a pandering fool!

He walked down the halls, once again hearing the chorus of maddening babble from Malfoys past.

"—The dragon was as tall as a tree, and I—"

"Young man, when I was your age—"

"—We showed those cruel Muggles—"

"—Burn me at the stake! Hah!"

"—And the Mudblood population—"

"Shut UP!" Draco screamed, gripping his head tight as about half the still-sane paintings stared in his direction, "Shut up shut up shut UP! You're fucking DEAD! Act like it!"

"Draco Abraxius Malfoy!" his mother belted from two rooms over, "Quit that ruckus! You're alarming the flowers!"

He ran, ran down the halls past ancestor after ancestor, towards his room. Anything to get away from that grey room filled with cruel disappointment and overwhelming expectations, legacies he would never live up to and standards he would never meet.

He was fighting a war he didn't believe in, to protect people who didn't believe in him.

Something had to happen today. Something was going to happen, or he would make something happen.

3


	3. Oddities

" _He set out on a journey through the forest and hills. He climbed over rocks and under vines and kept going until he reached a river."_

Tossing and turning, Draco awoke in the darkness. His arm was burning again. Still.

Flashes of his previous dream washed over him, images of the Dark Lord's cruel, piercing red eyes and the inside of Nagini's jaws. A high cruel voice whispering 'you failed again', swiftly joined by his father's low baritone angrily saying 'Malfoys don't fail!'

It was so difficult to decipher what the dream meant. Maybe, perhaps, he was afraid of failing his family again? Possibly? Wow, he should go into the auror business with investigation skills like those.

The worst part wasn't even the possibility of failure. It was the possibility of success.

An image of a collared Granger, bringing the Dark Lord food on a platter, cleaning away his victims, washing his feet, wearing the same potato sack clothing as was popular among house elves, hair toed back in a ratty braid, the spark gone from her eyes.

He was supposed to capture and 'tame' Hermione Granger.

She was the know it all, the brightest witch of her age, the poster child for muggleborn success, and the Dark Lord thought that if he captured her, turned her into a servant, a docile pet, he would crush the resistance and gain the last bit of support he needed to take over.

However, the mere idea of capturing Granger was an absurd one, she was brilliant and constantly surrounded by the two blundering bodyguards she called friends. Even alone she could hold her own with the best of them.

His face stung remembering the punch she threw back in third year, the one that broke his nose. She was formidable, dangerous, brilliant, and it was his task to find her and tame her.

It was a setup for failure, with a small gain in the result of victory. A win-win for the Dark Lord.

He knew this. He set Draco up for the sole purpose of humiliation. As if the Dumbledore debacle hadn't been embarrassment enough for a lifetime.

Regardless of the practicality of the mission, Draco had to go. He had to find Granger. He began packing a bag, throwing food and bottles of water in a knapsack, grabbing a few changes of clothes and his wand. He had to find Granger.

He apparated away from the Manor, landing in a small back alleyway in the muggle town of Westbury a few miles away. The knapsack slung over his shoulder, he walked into the closest convenience store.

The slightly balding man at the counter looked up at him. "Hi! How can I help you today?"

Draco furrowed his brow. "I need to find… a friend. She and I were really close a few years ago, but she moved and I don't even know where to begin looking for her," he lied effectively, "Do you have any suggestions?"

The man looked confused at the odd question from the odd man, and cautiously answered back, "Is she local? You could always look for her name in the telephone book."

"The ah, the telly-phone book?" Draco was out of his element by a long shot.

"Yes," the man stated slowly, pursing his lips at the confusing teenager, "Or if she wasn't from around here you could try the internet."

"And how exactly does one access the um, the internet?"

The man stared at him without responding.

"I'm not from around here," Draco offered as if to excuse his lack of muggle knowledge

"A computer. Try the library." The man said, rolling his eyes, done with the strange prank.

"Thank you," Draco said earnestly.

He went to leave, startling at the automatic doors, but turned around and made eye contact with the strung out clerk once more.

"Where would I…" He trailed off.

"Three blocks over," the man sighed, "just drive straight north, can't miss it."

"Thank you." The blonde man said, bracing himself for the automatic doors again and walking outside.

He pulled out his unicorn hair core wand, and whispered "Point me." The wand spun, and like the man said, pointed due north. Draco adjusted the knapsack on his shoulders and began to walk.

Three blocks wasn't far, and the library was decently cool. How muggles maintained a decent temperature without cooling charms, he had no idea, but it was certainly effective.

The library reminded him of his own study in the Manor, filled floor to ceiling with rows upon rows of books. A muggle girl sat on the floor of one of the rows, surrounded by books. A huge smile lay upon her face as she scanned the book in her lap quickly. Her slightly too large front teeth were perfectly straight and white, and bit gently on her lower lip as she grinned. Although the girl was no more than 11, Draco felt a strange pricking of familiarity, as if he had met this girl before.

He shook it off and strode to the help desk with confidence. He was here on a mission. "I need to use a computator," he said to the elderly woman at the help desk.

"A computer?" she questioned as Draco mentally kicked himself for getting the name wrong. She continued after he nodded his intent. "Those can be found in the Computer Lab, down the hall right there—" she pointed with her finger to the left while peering at him over her glasses, "—first door on the right."

"Thanks," he said firmly, "One more thing."

She cocked an eyebrow, waiting for him to ask.

"I intend to use the Internets to find an old acquaintance. Can you explain briefly how one would go about that?"

Her eyebrows shot up. "Google," she said decisively as she stared at him.

"Google…?"

She sighed loudly. What was with him causing loud sighs today?!

"Jeanne, come here!" she said in a hushed voice.

The bookworm from the middle of the row of books put a flowery bookmark in her current material and scampered over, grinning up at the woman behind the counter. "Yes, Gramma?" she asked enthusiastically.

"This gentleman, Mr…"

"Malfoy."

"Mr. Malfoy, needs some help with the computer. Be a dear and help him figure it out?"

"Sure!" She took his hand and led him back to the computer room, bouncing enthusiastically. He cringed at the touch of a muggle, but refused to visibly flinch. It wouldn't do to offend the person who was supposedly about to help him.

She sat him down at a computer, and pulled up a wheeled office chair next to him. "What do you need help with?" She asked, her eyes glimmering.

"I'm trying to find a friend, on the internets here, but I have no idea how to use a 'Google'" he said bluntly, staring at the weird eclectrick contraption.

"Okay, well firstly, google is that little icon right there. Just click on it to open the search bar." The young girl had a studious expression, very seriously explaining the weird device.

Draco touched the screen at the weird circle where the girl had pointed, and the girl laughed, her green eyes lighting up with joy. "No, silly, use the mouse!"

He threw himself back, pushing away from the desk rapidly and shouting, "Mouse?!"

No wonder muggles were so filthy, if they willingly asked mice to do their bidding!

"Mouse," the girl repeated calmly, stifling another giggle and holding up another weird device with a skinny string coming out the end.

He cautiously put his hand on the 'mouse' and watched a little arrow graphic drag itself across the computator screen to the little icon.

"How do I click?" he asked, feeling foolish.

"Push down with your first finger!" She explained, making a tapping motion with her first finger as an example. He followed her lead, and a white screen opened on the device.

"Great!" she praised, "Now just type your friend's name into this little window here!"

"Window?" he muttered, perplexed again.

"Box. This box here." She amended, brushing her fingers through the hair on the left side of her head. It was then Draco realized who the girl resembled. It was none other than the girl he was chasing, the Gryffindor know it all. The books, the glimmering eyes of which the only difference was color, the studious expressions and detailed descriptions, it was tiny-Granger.

He wondered if Granger would have been so kind as the young Jeanne.

Probably, before the war. Before sides had been drawn, before he had introduced her to blood prejudice and her own lesser class.

Before she had entered a world filled with hate, she had probably been pure, in spirit if not in blood.

Now she was tainted in more ways than one, and she needed to be found.

His fingers flew across the strange letter squares, spelling out 'Hermione Granger' in the box Jeanne had gestured to.

5


	4. Searching

" _The river was wide, and swift, and the scorpion stopped to reconsider the situation."_

Draco Malfoy sat in the computer lab of the Westbury library, Jeanne by his side, scrolling through pages of Google results looking for any insight as to where Granger could be. Grangers weren't exactly common, and Hermione was an unusual name, so for that he was grateful.

He clicked on the first 'link' with the 'mouse', and a new white screen popped up. It was a news article from eight years ago, showing a picture of a bushy haired, buck toothed, ten year old Granger smiling huge and holding up a certificate of some sort. 'Salisbury Student Wins County-Wide Spelling Bee' read the bold headline. Draco rolled his eyes. Of course the know it all would be an academic allstar in the muggle world as well.

It wasn't important though. What was important was the hint towards her previous location, Salisbury.

Jeanne, the muggle girl sent to assist him, spoke up and interrupted his thoughts. "Is that your friend, Mr. Malfoy?"

"Yes," Draco nodded, "That's her."

"Does she still live in Salisbury?"

"I don't know."

"Well," she said, "Keep looking then! You want to find her, right?"

"Why else would I be here," Draco said dryly, "Of course I want to find her."

He tried to reverse from the news article with the muggleborn's face, only succeeding in making the Google screen bigger and smaller. The petite girl next to him giggled loudly at his mishaps, as he grunted in frustration.

"The back arrow, click the back arrow!" she said excitedly through peals of laughter.

Draco grumbled under his breath and clicked the button she pointed at, completely disgruntled at the complex machine and the child next to him who had seemed to master it. The same screen he had been looking at previously came up, with the lists and lists of clickable bits.

He scrolled down a little farther, and the screen stopped showing results. "Is this it?" he asked Jeanne, "Is this all the Google has about her?"

"Next page." she stated, gesturing towards the small arrow with the stretched out logo at the bottom of the results. He clicked it, and kept searching through results. Not much was to be found that he didn't already know about Hermione. She won a speedreading competition, typical, multiple scholastic competitions. and awards for her studiousness, and other than that really laid low. Her phone number wasn't listed, and neither was her home address. However, her parent's workplace was.

He clicked on a link, recognizing the names "Jean and Robert Granger" as her parents after a previous result. Their dentistry practice's office came up, something about smiles and teeth and huge blown up pictures of mouths looking awful and then not so awful. Draco shuddered. Teeth doctors were horribly muggle, and terrifying at the same time.

"I can't find her, Jeanne," he said, frustrated, "I can't find my friend!"

"Did you try the phone book?" she asked sweetly, the grin back on her face.

Draco was silent for a moment, then shook his head no. "I came straight to the library, I haven't tried anything else yet."

"Maybe you should try the Salisbury phonebook!" she said excitedly, "If it has her parent's phone number or address you can ask them to put you in contact!"

He smirked slightly, nodding his head. As soon as he got to her parents it would be cake to find her, he would slip them some veritiserum and wipe their memory of the event and call it good.

"Thank you for all your help, Jeanne, I think I'll do just that!" he said enthusiastically, pressing the red x at the top of the computer screen with the little pointer arrow. She beamed at him as he started to stand up.

"No problem, Mr. Malfoy!" she grinned, and bounded off towards her small spread of books again.

He pushed in his chair and left the computer lab right behind her. "Thank you," he said to the librarian at the front counter, "She was an amazing help and I accomplished everything I needed to."

"Jeanne's a wonder, isn't she?" the older woman spoke lovingly of her granddaughter, smiling faintly over the rim of her glasses.

"Thank you again," Draco said as he was leaving the library, "I appreciate it."

The door closed behind him, the warm outside air making him increasingly uncomfortable. His cooling charm had worn off during the hour he spent in the quiet library, and it was getting hotter by the minute. He began to walk back towards the convenience store where he had originally apparated to, so he could apparate back to the Manor. Heading straight to Salisbury wasn't an option, as he had never been before, so he would have to fly or walk, maybe floo to a nearby area. There had to be some wizards in Salisbury, right?

Returning to the manor was an interesting experience. He had mostly stayed in his bedroom since school got out three weeks ago, and didn't really want to interact with his father since their short conflict the other day. Lucius would be no help in finding a way to Salisbury. So instead of asking his father, or even acknowledging his existence, Draco headed to his room.

"Tizzy!" He called, summoning the small docile elf.

A loud crack signaled the elf's arrival. "Yes, Young Master Malfoy?"

"I need to get to Salisbury. Is there a wizarding store or area there?"

"Tizzy does not knows, Young Master Malfoy!" the elf replied frantically, huge eyes open wider than usual.

"Find out." Draco said dismissively, with a wave of his hand. Tizzy disapparated with another pop, and Draco began to settle in on his bed. It was nice, the cooling charms surrounding the manor kept the entire house comfortable, unlike the blistering heat of the rest of Wiltshire. It was one of the hottest summers he could remember, and it was miserable to try and leave the cool house.

He had just sat down and began to flick through the Potions handbook required for his 7th year when another loud crack startled him.

"Back so soon, Tizz? Good news, I hope." He spoke, not glancing up from his book once.

"The Newt's Tail, sir, the Newt's Tail is a wizarding pub!" he squeaked, sweat dripping down his long crooked nose.

"Good work," Draco said, ignoring the elf and continuing to read about the effects of adding the lacewing flies before stirring counterclockwise in Polyjuice Potion. "You're dismissed."

The elf disapparated yet again, and Draco sighed. Sometimes having elves was pretty useful, when they weren't annoyingly trying to punish themselves for a mistake. He skimmed the rest of the page and put the book down, grabbing his knapsack once again. Walking to the fireplace in his bedroom, he threw some powder into the roaring flames and said "The Newt's Tail, Salisbury." Clearly into the smoke. The flames roared green, and he stepped in, whirring away to his destination.

Draco tumbled from the flames into a dingy diner-style bar, surprising the greasy looking man behind the counter. The entire place reminded him of a decrepit Three Broomsticks. He stood up with grace and dusted himself off, straightening his tie.

The man behind the counter eyed his formal clothing, but made no comment towards the clearly out-of-place Pureblood. Just as well, as Draco walked out the door without a second glance.

The hot air hit him like a wall, as immediately he regretted not changing into cooler clothing before leaving. He muttered a quick Cooling Charm, holding his wand under his suit's jacket, and immediately felt relief.

He walked about a block down the road to a small convenience store downtown. The Muggle behind the counter had a greedy glint in his eyes as he appraised the rich man asking for temporary use of his 'telly-fone book' for gold.

"It'll only take a second," Draco bargained, annoyed by the man's reluctance to set equal terms.

The man still shook his head and pointed at his coin purse. "More," he stated demandingly.

Draco sighed and reached into his jacket pocket to grasp his wand. He discreetly pointed it at the clerk and whispered "Confundus," and grabbed the phone book. "Thank you again for letting me borrow this!"

The man looked confused, staring at Draco with blurry eyes and a blank smile. "No problem, kid." The man spoke with a weirdly monotonous voice, "Bring it back—unless I sold it to you?"

"No, I'm borrowing it." Draco said to the confused man, and walked outside to sit on a sidewalk curb right in front of the store.

"Granger, Granger," he muttered to himself while flipping to the 'G's. His eyes scanned the yellow pages, held down by his slim fingers to resist the gentle breeze blowing through the hot street. He let out a slow, quiet exhale as he found his target.

'GRANGER,Robert, Jean…6973 Castle St, Salisbury, Wiltshire, SP1 3SP, England'

It had a phone number following, but it wasn't important in the slightest. He had the address, the location with which to find Mr. and Mrs. Granger; the address that would lead him one step closer to Granger and to safety from the Dark Lord for another week.

Draco casually brought the telly-fone book back to the greedy muggle, placing it on the counter and asking, "So I have to get to Castle Street, what would be the quickest way?"

"Take a taxi, kid," the muggle said, still slightly dazed, "Do I look like a map to you?"

"Taxi?" Draco inquired, face scrunched up at the unfamiliar word.

"Yaknow, like a car you hire? Damn rich pricks don't know anything less than limos nowadays," the man muttered, half to himself.

Draco was unfamiliar with 'cars', but didn't really see any other options. "How would I summon a, uh, a taxi?" he asked.

"Hold on, I'll do it." The man walked off to a telly-fone a few feet behind the counter, and Draco looked around to keep himself busy. Scanning the rows of sugary junk food, he passed many types of Muggle chocolates, crisps, and drinks. His stomach growled, but the muggle food looked weirdly unnatural, so he didn't dare.

"Kid, taxi'll be here in ten. You should wait outside." The greasy man stated, eyeing him suspiciously.

"Thanks," Draco nodded, and left to go sit on a curb again.

Shortly after he exited the rundown building, a yellow 'car' slid next to the curb where he was sitting. The gruff woman inside made the glass window go down, and leaned her head ut the window.

"You getting in?" she asked him. Draco nodded and stood up, grabbing his knapsack from where it sat next to him. He opened the back door into the 'taxi' and sat on the cushy leather seat, putting his bag next to him.

"Buckle up, sweetheart," the muscular lady said, pointing at the fabric strip dangling from one corner of the car. Most Ministry cars didn't have those, so Draco was at a loss as to how to connect it to the base of the seat, but then noticed the weird receptacle next to his hip. Yes, Ministry cars didn't often have these, but Ministry cars often hovered instead of actually driving. These were muggle cars though. He could be a passenger in a muggle car. All he had to do was sit there. He was a Malfoy, he could sit in the backseat successfully.

He gripped the armrest tightly as the car sped around a corner, and he felt his momentum drag him the opposite way. The thing was a rusty death trap, moving with a loud low growl, and he needed out as soon as possible.

Luckily, the woman knew right where the address he shared was located, so the journey didn't take too long. Within 15 minutes he was at the Granger residence, a small house with bright white walls and a flowering garden up front.

Looking around, Draco could definitely imagine Granger growing up here. Reading in the porch swing, running around the lawn, it was easy to imagine. This house held traces of Granger Everywhere, it would be easy to determine her current location with the wealth of information contained here.

He thanked the cab driver and gave her a Galleon, which she eyed suspiciously before accepting the gold coin and slipping it into her purse.

As the taxi drove off, he cast a quick Disillusionment Charm, rendering himself invisible as he snuck into the house. It would do him good to be able to observe them for a few minutes first, so that he would be able to accurately replace memories after he questioned them.

He walked around the perimeter of the house, looking for an easy way in. The house was two stories, and one of the upper windows was left open, but he wanted an easier way. To get up there, Draco would end up either scaling the wall or levitating up, and there was too much of a chance for accidental loud noises signifying his presence or something going awry, so he kept searching.

In the back yard, a tire swing hung from the branch of a large tree. It cast shade over the entire yard, and part of the house. He scanned the branches, looking for any close enough to the house to scale through a window, but to no avail. It looked like the only way in would be through the upper window in front. He would have to use a levitation charm to lift himself up.

As he walked around to the front, he heard footsteps on the sidewalk. He spun and looked at the oncoming person, holding completely still as if he was visible.

Hermione Granger ran up the front steps onto the porch, and into the house.


End file.
